


Embrace

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Whumptober 2019 [31]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Cactus related injuries, Day 31, Idiot related injuries, Incorrect use of depilatory wax, Whumptober 2019, prompt: embrace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 11:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Some hugs are not meant to be given.





	Embrace

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [Secret_Library98](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secret_Library98/pseuds/Secret_Library98).
> 
> Also, let's all give SecretLibrary a round of applause. She's read and helped me edit every single story in whumptober, some of them pretty last minute. I couldn't have done it without her.

They’re almost in, just a little further and Mac’s suction cup suit will have gotten him to the open window on the third floor. 

Correction: would have.

The vacuumed powered wall-climber stops suddenly and Mac only has a second before he’s falling two and a half stories to the ground below. Or well, he wishes it was the ground. A concussion and some broken ribs might have been better.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, shit, Mac! Are you alright? Dude did you hit your head?” Jack says quietly as he stands by Mac’s feet, clearly surveying the potential damage. 

“Didn’t hit my head. The vacuum pack is gonna leave a mark, though,” he replies with a groan. This hurts and part of him just wants to be really, _really_ still. Because when he moves, and it’s going to need to be soon before someone sees them, it’s going to hurt ten times worse.

“Good, because I think we’ve been made. Come on, give me your hand,” Jack coaxes, holding his arm out.

Mac opens his eyes and looks up at Jack as best he can from this angle. Gritting his teeth, Mac reaches, his fingertips only barely reaching Jack’s, and once Jack gets a grip, he slowly reels Mac in, while thousands and thousands of cactus spines dig deeper into every inch of the back of his body. It’s slow going at first since Mac can barely move after being stunned on impact and then impaled with cactus spines. But as Jack gets better leverage, he gives a final yank, pulling Mac out of the patch of prickly pears. Mac comes free, but he stumbles forward, landing on Jack.

“Oh, oh, ouch!” Jack gasps.

Mac groans, his eyes closing as everything in his body hurts at once.

“Buddy, pal, you know I think of you like a brother, but this is the worst hug in the history of hugs. You gotta get off me,” Jack grumbles.

Someone shouts, “Allí están!” and Mac knows that the only thing that’s going to hurt worse than being covered in cactus spines is being tackled by some rent-a-cop while covered in cactus spines. He manages to get his feet fully underneath himself, shimmy out of the vacuum backpack harness, and take off towards the car with Jack. 

They make it to the car, though only barely, and Mac has no choice but to dive in, crushing most of the spines into his skin once more. He can’t help but scream at the initial impact and then again and again as they bump down the unpaved roads back to safety.

*****

As soon as they reach town, Jack drops Mac off in their motel room, though not before picking the two remaining cactus pads off of Mac, and heads to the local Walgreens for supplies. Mac, unable to do anything other than be in pain, stands in the middle of the room, unmoving, until Jack returns, seemingly without the spines he received in his accidental hug. Mac's mildly annoyed that Jack took the time to pull out what couldn't have been more than fifteen spines while he was waiting on help, but he doesn't say anything because he also knows he's being entirely unreasonable. 

“Dude, those clothes are trashed. I think I’m just gonna cut you out of them,” Jack says as he surveys the damage.

Mac nods stiffly. “Fine. Just do it.”

“In the bathtub, though. We don’t want this shit getting in the carpet,” Jack points out. It’s a solid point, but just shuffling to the bathroom is torture. Lifting his feet high enough to step into the tub has him groaning and gritting his teeth. 

Carefully, Jack gets to work with the safety shears, snipping Mac’s clothing off of him. Every movement jostles something, sending buzzing, stinging pain all over Mac’s skin. Even once he’s free of the clothes, it doesn’t get better. Every flinch sets off another pain elsewhere, until Mac’s shaking from the effort of enduring. 

“How’re you hanging in there?” Jack asks as he plucks a few more thorns out of the inside of Mac’s thigh. 

“I’ll manage,” Mac mutters. “How much more?”

“Uh, well, I got your back, your arms, and your butt. So just your legs. But I’m only getting the big ones. All the little hair looking things are gonna have to come out with the wax.”

“Wax?” Mac asks. “I told you to buy regular white school glue.”

“They were out. I figured, you know, the stronger the better. Make sure to get them all,” Jack says, pulling out a particularly long thorn that couldn’t possibly have some from a prickly pear.

Mac wants to be mad, but he’s too exhausted from all the pain. Instead, he just lets Jack pull thorns and tries to breathe.

*****

“Alright, so are you ready?” Jack asks. 

Mac’s naked and face down on the hotel bed, and Jack’s standing beside him with a package of heated depilatory wax. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Using the tiny spatula included in one the fifteen kits Jack bought with the Phoenix credit card, he begins to smear the wax.

“Fuck! Jack! Stop!!!” Mac shouts.

“What?”

“That’s gonna leave burns!! Jesus, how long did you leave it in the microwave?” Mac asks through gritted teeth. 

“Uh, about a minute? Is that too long?”

Mac wants to punch someone, namely Jack, to take his mind off the burning on his right shoulder. “What do the instructions say?” he grumbles.

There’s some rummaging and muttering, before Jack sheepishly says, “Twenty to thirty seconds.”

Mac groans and buries his face in the scratchy polyester duvet. “Let it cool before you add any more,” he instructs.

“Yeah, yeah, will do. Sorry,” Jack mumbles.

While they wait, Jack turns on the TV which only has two channels — Telemundo and QVC. Given the options, they spend a few minutes listening to reruns of _La Mujer en el Espejo_ before Jack declares the wax to be a body-safe temperature.

This time the wax simply hurts as it jostles the thousands of tiny hair-like spines in his skin, but at least there’s no burning. Jacks pats the paper strips on and Mac groans loudly into the mattress. It cools in relatively short order and Jack grabs the paper backing.

“You ready?” Jacks asks.

Mac groans into the mattress but gives Jack a thumbs up anyway. The first strip tears away, and while it’s not comfortable, it’s far less awful than he’d expected. The second strip, however, is from the overheated wax, and Mac screams into the mattress.

“Oh shit. Oh, that’s- that’s not good,” Jack says.

Mac’s hands fist in the duvet and he tries to breathe through his nose. Of course, the duvet, or maybe just the mattress underneath, smells of sweat and cigarette smoke, and Mac nearly gags.

“How bad?” he finally moans as he gives up and turns his face to the side.

“Uh, I mean. It’s red… ish. Um, maybe took the top few layers of skin with it?” Jack says hesitantly.

“How bad is it bleeding?” Mac asks, because as bad as this hurts, there's no way it isn't bleeding.

Jack leans close and pokes around the edges of the worst patch. “The little capillaries are bleeding, but not like a lot a lot.”

Mac’s not sure of what he can say so he just nods. “Just- let’s finish.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jack agrees, and he heats up more wax in the microwave while singing,  
“You put the wax in the microwave,  
And heat it all up.  
You max the wax in the microwave,  
And heat it all up.”

Somehow, Mac knows that the excruciating pain he’s in is going to be the butt of every joke about him from now until he’s dead. There’s no way he can make Jack waxing him in an Arizona motel room sound particularly normal or reasonable, no matter how many cactus spines he has in him. 

By the time they’re almost done — two hours and fifteen DIY waxing kits later — Mac is trembling again from the pain. Gently, Jack smears triple antibiotic ointment over everything, because no matter how many spines came out, there were still a few that remain trapped beneath the skin. The last thing Mac needs is widespread cactus-induced dermatitis. 

While Mac tries to dry-swallow four ibuprofen, Jack gently covers him with a sheet. “I’ll buy glue next time,” he promises softly.

“There won’t be a ‘next time,’” Mac says very matter-of-factly. But his seriousness only lasts a few moments and then he’s laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing. He knows that he is never ever living this down, but if that’s the worst that comes of it all, well, worse things have happened.


End file.
